Recently, a secondary battery, which can be charged and discharged, has been widely used as an energy source for wireless mobile devices. Also, the secondary battery has attracted considerable attention as a power source for electric vehicles and hybrid electric vehicles, which have been developed to solve problems, such as air pollution, caused by existing gasoline and diesel vehicles using fossil fuel.
Small-sized mobile devices use one or several small-sized cells for each device. On the other hand, medium- or large-sized devices, such as vehicles, use a medium- or large-sized battery module having a plurality of cells electrically connected with each other because high output and large capacity is necessary for the medium- or large-sized devices.
Generally, a battery module is manufactured by electrically connecting a plurality of battery cartridges, each of which has a plurality of unit cells connected in series and/or parallel with each other. According to circumstances, two or more battery modules are electrically connected with each other to provide a medium- or large-sized battery system having higher output.
Consequently, there is needed a connecting member that is capable of effectively performing the electrical connection between the batteries (including the unit cells), the electrical connection between the battery cartridges, and the electrical connection between the battery modules, and the electrical connection for receiving power from the battery modules and supplying the power to an external device. Furthermore, the connection between the electrode terminals and the corresponding connecting members is required when a signal, such as voltage, is outputted to control the operation of the batteries as a power source.
On the other hand, the terminal connection part (which is used as a concept including the connection part between an external device and the corresponding electrode and the connection part between a detection device and the corresponding electrode as well as the connection part between the electrode terminals as described above) is a part which can be easily short-circuited and easily corroded due to moisture. For this reason, careful attention is required during the manufacture or during the use thereof.
Although some conventional apparatuses and methods for isolating the terminal connection part from the outside have been proposed, no apparatus that is capable of fundamentally preventing the above-mentioned problems has been developed yet.